


Reckoning To Be Reckoned

by eternaleponine



Series: Subject to Debate [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Clexa Week 2017, Enemies to Lovers, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 09:23:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9997214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: #ClexaWeek2017Arkadia High and Ton DC High are rivals in everything.  Clarke is the co-captain of the Arkadia debate team, and she is completely ready to face their rivals in States and win her team a place in Nationals.  But will she be able to keep her head in the game when she meets a mysterious girl with a piercing green gaze?Sequel can be found here:Satisfied





	

The rivalry between Arkadia High and Ton DC High was legendary. Sports, theater, Science Olympiad, Mathletes... you name it, and they went head to head in it. Neither school clearly dominated; things tended to swap back and forth year to year, and usually if one school excelled in one area during any given year, the opposing school would outshine them somewhere else. 

It was infuriating to some, but for Clarke and the Arkadia Debate Team, it was just motivation to step up their game as they headed into States... because of course Ton DC was going to be there, too. Whoever won would go to Nationals, and Clarke was determined that it was going to be them this year. It was her last chance, and Ton DC had beaten them the last two years since she'd joined. She wasn't going to let it happen again. 

"Are you serious?" she asked as Harper unzipped her sleeping bag and slid inside. "It's barely even dark out!"

"It's after nine," Harper said. Which was true, but it was close enough to the summer solstice that the two statements were not, in fact, mutually exclusive. "I need to make sure I get plenty of sleep before tomorrow."

"Is it going to bother you if I stay up working?" Clarke asked.

Harper gave her a look that clearly said, 'Uh, yeah, obviously.'

"Are you seriously serious?" Clarke grumbled, but she gathered her books and notes and notecards and laptop and headed to the little common room a few doors down. States were held at a local college, which was already out of session for the summer, so they got to stay in one of the dorms. She could hear people gathered in the bigger common room at the opposite end of the hall, which had a TV and a mini kitchen and stuff, but she needed quiet. 

She nudged open the door with her elbow and stepped inside... then froze. She had assumed that the room would be empty, but apparently not. A girl with her hair tugged back from her face so sharply it looked like it was probably painful glanced up from her laptop and Clarke felt as if she was being pinned by the piercing green gaze. "Can I help you?"

"Just looking for somewhere to work," Clarke said. "Do you mind?"

"Be my guest," the girl said, but her tone was far from welcoming. She kept her eyes on Clarke for a few seconds longer, until finally Clarke just went and found a seat, spreading her stuff across a small table and trying to focus on it. 

After about ten minutes of reading the same paragraph over and over again, she wanted to scream. The other girl was hardly making any noise, and yet her presence was _loud_ , like static on the radio turned up to eleven. Clarke found herself glancing over at her again and again, then looking quickly away before she could look back. She'd never seen her before, which meant she was probably from one of the podunk little towns out in the middle of nowhere that were never any threat. But there was something about her that was unsettling, and Clarke finally had to go back to her room, ignoring the grumpy noises that Harper made when she switched on the light. She found her headphones and put them on her head, switching them to the noise canceling setting and letting the actual white noise drown out the noise of the girl's existence. 

She stayed up until she was sure that she had all of her points for tomorrow's debates lined up, and then packed everything away. The girl was still there, and Clarke wondered if she'd moved more than a finger this entire time. "Good night," she said. "Good luck tomorrow."

The girl looked up then, raising her eyebrows. "I don't need luck."

_Wow,_ Clarke thought. _Cocky much?_ She forced a smile anyway, and retreated back to her room to sleep, trying not to think about the girl or tomorrow or any of it. She needed to be well-rested for tomorrow. The first day would set the tone for the entire competition, and her team was counting on her. 

In the morning Harper was up at an inhuman hour, and it was all Clarke could do not to throw something at her as she hummed to herself while getting ready. She dragged herself out of bed, feeling as if she hadn't slept at all, even though she didn't remember any bad dreams, or even waking up in the middle of the night. She forced herself out of bed and into whatever clothing was nearest to hand, deciding that she would eat (and get coffee) first, and then come back and shower and dress for the day. 

When they got to the dining hall, it looked like roughly half the team had had the same idea, so she didn't feel bad about not making more of an effort to look more captain-like. They discussed their strategies for the day in muted tones... but it was as if the volume got switched off completely when Clarke glanced up and saw her again. The girl from the night before, shoulders back and back straight, her chin lifted so that she appeared to be looking down at her nose at everyone as she walked past. She was alone, but Clarke watched as she made her way across the room, trying to figure out what table she was heading for.

"Earth to Clarke!" Bellamy said, snapping his fingers in front of her face. "Care to join us in this conversation?" His expression was the almost permanently sour one that he'd worn every time he spoke to her since they were designated co-captains of the team back at the beginning of the year. He'd expected the honor would be his and his alone, and he hadn't been all that gracious about sharing. They'd reached an understanding, a sort of truce, but any time she did anything that was less than perfect, he was the first to come down on her and blame her for everything that had gone wrong that day, or week, or year.

"Sorry," she said. "Where were we?"

They recapped the last couple of minutes that she'd lost, and she forced herself to focus on the team and not where that girl, whoever she was, had gone. 

She didn't see her again until after lunch, when she had her first big debate. She hadn't been thrilled when she'd gotten the topic – LGBT rights – and even less thrilled that she'd been handed the anti position, but she'd thrown herself into it like she did everything, because she didn't really have a choice. Debate wasn't about one's personal feelings, anyway. Caring too much about your topic could actually hurt your case, if you couldn't stay calm and collected. If you let your emotions interfere with constructing a rational argument, it was a recipe for disaster. 

Somewhere in the middle of her argument, she saw someone in the audience stand up and walk out. Even without being able to see her clearly, she knew it was the girl. She hesitated for just a second, stumbled over the middle of her sentence, but she managed to get herself back on track quickly enough that she hoped no one had noticed. (Except Bellamy. Bellamy would have noticed, and he would make sure that she heard about it later.) She was relieved when the debate ended, and couldn't help smiling when was declared the victor. The rest of the day was spent helping and rooting for her teammates, and grabbing every spare minute she could get to start working on her arguments for tomorrow, since she knew she would be moving on. 

At dinner, they all found seats and began to rehash what had gone wrong that day, and what had gone right. She was shocked when Bellamy didn't immediately lay into her about her fumble, but the fact that he had lost his own debate earlier in the day might have been enough to keep his mouth shut, because he knew that criticizing her when she'd won would open up a can of worms. 

When Clarke got up to clear her tray and see about dessert, she saw the girl again... and her team. Ton DC. But that was impossible! They'd gone up against their rivals earlier in the year, more than once, and Clarke was absolutely sure that if that girl had been there, she would remember it. Weren't there rules about changing team members after a certain point? Had she always been an alternate and Clarke just hadn't seen her? 

She went back to her seat, unsettled, and was glad when the rest of the group started to scatter to prepare for the next day, or to blow off steam, or both. Only Bellamy lingered, and Clarke braced herself for a lecture. All he said, though, was, "Keep your head in the game. Don't let anything or anyone make you lose focus." 

"I won't," she said. "Thanks." 

He looked at her, long and hard, and then got up to follow the others out. Clarke left a few minutes later, after she'd finished her ice cream, and headed back to the dorm. As tempting as it was to just log in to Netflix and lose a couple of hours not thinking about anything, she didn't have that luxury. She couldn't let her team down; she needed to be at the top of her game, because they were facing off against Mount Weather, who was probably their biggest thread besides Ton DC, tomorrow. 

She went to the little common room again, glad to find that this time it was actually empty. She was tempted to close and lock the door so that no one could interrupt her, but she was pretty sure that there was some kind of rule against that. She just set herself up and dug into her research. 

She was jolted out of the zone she'd gotten into some time later when the door clicked shut. The sound shouldn't have disturbed her, it was so quiet she wasn't even sure what made her noticed it... until she looked up and around... and there was that girl, the volume of her presence cranked even louder than before, and it was that, more than the actual sound that the door had made, that had broken her focus. 

"Hey," she said, trying to smile at her even though she was the enemy, because that was the other thing about debate – you couldn't be too invested in your topics and you couldn't take things too personally. Including rivalries between schools. But it faltered before it even fully formed, because the girl's green gaze burned into her, and again she felt as pinned as a butterfly in a display case. 

"Do you actually believe that shit?" the girl asked, her voice low, lower than Clarke would have expected, but somehow it suited her. Of course it suited her. Everything about this girl was poised, practiced, calculated, and god, what wouldn't she do to try and get behind that unflappable façade...

She pushed the thought away, and all of the other half-formed thoughts that accompanied it, because now was not the time and this was not the place, and this girl was absolutely _not_ the person. "Excuse me?"

"All of that shit that you said in your debate," the girl said, taking a step forward, and Clarke felt as if gravity increased or the air compressed or something as she got closer, because it suddenly felt harder to breathe. "Do you believe it?"

Clarke blinked, for a second forgetting what topic she'd covered, because she'd already moved on to the next. Apparently her opponent took her hesitation as an affirmation, because her teeth clenched, the muscles in her jaw jumping. 

"No," Clarke said finally, when everything clicked back into place. "No, I don't believe it."

"Because you seemed pretty happy to have won," the girl said.

"Everyone is happy when they win," Clarke countered. 

"I'm not," the girl said. "Not when the win is for the wrong side."

Clarke frowned. "Who _are_ you?" she asked. 

"Does it matter?" the girl asked in return. 

"I like to know the names of the people that hate me for no reason," Clarke said. "Just a weird quirk of mine."

That seemed to throw the girl off, just the tiniest flicker of surprise and uncertainty before her mask slid back into place. "My name is Lexa," she said. 

"Clarke." She didn't bother to offer a hand to shake, because she was absolutely sure that if she did she would be left hanging. 

"I know who you are," Lexa said. "Captain of the Arkadia High team."

"Co-captain," Clarke corrected. 

She thought she saw Lexa's eyes roll before she focused back on Clarke's face. "You are their leader," she said. "Everyone knows it."

Clarke didn't know how to respond to that, so she just didn't say anything at all. It seemed the safest course of action. But the silence stretched too long, and finally she asked the question that had been burning at the back of her mind since the last night. "Why have I never seen you before?" she asked. 

Lexa looked at her as if weighing whether to answer the question honestly, or perhaps whether to answer at all. "The team lost one of its members. I was her second."

_Second?_ She made it sound like a duel, and for a second Clarke had the perverse urge to start rapping. _Pick a place to die where it's high and dry._

"I'm sorry," she said instead. 

"Why?" Lexa asked. 

"That you lost one of your teammates," Clarke said. 

"Why are you sorry?" Lexa asked again. "You didn't know her."

"It—" Clarke stopped herself. This girl – Lexa – obviously didn't want sympathy. Especially not of the socially obligated by not personally felt variety. Fine. "Fine. Was there anything else you wanted to berate me about?"

Lexa looked at her for a long moment, and then came and sat down, not in her chair from the night before that put them about as far away from each other as they could be in the small space, but at the other end of the same couch Clarke was sitting on. Not too close for comfort, but close to too close. Clarke could feel her there, feel the energy of her pressing up against the limits of her personal space, and suddenly she realized what was happening, what this was.

Psychological warfare. 

The Ton DC team saw her as a threat, and they'd sent this girl – or maybe Lexa had sent herself – to get into her head and under her skin. To throw her off her game. Well, that wasn't going to happen, no matter how close she sat. 

She watched her expectantly, bracing herself for the next attack, or at least an answer to her question, but it didn't come, and finally she forced herself back to her work, even as her skin prickled where she felt Lexa's gaze still on her. 

Finally, though, she seemed to lose interest, and got her own notes from her bag and spread them out. Clarke couldn't help glancing over at them, but they seemed to be written primarily in some kind of shorthand that she couldn't decipher, and she finally gave up. Maybe – probably – it was just gibberish. Maybe it was all part of the Ton DC plan. 

She worked until later than she should have, longer than she needed to, really. Lexa was beside her the entire time, and as the minutes and hours ticked by, she wondered if maybe they were waging a silent battle to see who would crack and give up and go to bed first. Finally, though, Clarke decided that maybe packing up first wasn't losing at all. It just proved that she was fully prepared and confident, and didn't need to stay up working any longer. 

She gathered everything up and tucked it under her arm, then stood and headed for the door. Her hand was on the knob when a voice stopped her. "Sometimes when you play devil's advocate too well, you start to believe what the devil says."

Clarke turned to look back at her, and found herself frozen again, and how the hell did she _do_ that? She was pretty sure that no one had ever been stopped in their tracks by a look from her, and here she was feeling like her feet had turned to concrete with a glance. 

"I know what you're doing," she said. "It won't work."

"I'm not doing anything," Lexa said. 

"Yes, you are. You think you can make me doubt myself. You can't. It's just a debate. It's just a _game_. It doesn't _mean_ anything," Clarke said. "You've never had to argue something that you didn't agree with? You always believe every word that comes out of your mouth up there?"

Lexa frowned, and Clarke realized she'd scored a point. But one point wasn't enough. It didn't stop her. "Maybe it doesn't mean anything to you," she said, "but people listen to you. People hear what you say, and if you say it well enough, they believe it. Even if it's lies."

"Why does this matter so much to you?" Clarke asked. 

"Why _doesn't_ it matter to you?" Lexa countered, and her habit of answering a question with a question was infuriating. "Words have power. Even when it's 'just a game'. You would do well to remember that."

"I don't get to choose what stance I take," Clarke said. "That was decided for me. I'm sorry if—"

"I am not looking for an apology," Lexa said. "Apologies are meaningless, empty words that cannot undo what has been done."

"What would you have had me do?" Clarke demanded. "Throw the debate? Lose just because I didn't agree with what I was saying?" Lexa just raised an eyebrow. "Yeah," Clarke said. "You're not trying to do anything." She twisted the doorknob and stepped out into the hall, pausing to listen for any sounds behind her, anything that would indicate that Lexa had gotten up to follow, but there was nothing.

She went to bed, but she couldn't get that damn girl and what she'd said out of her head. No, of course she didn't always like the positions she ended up taking in debates. So what? The only other people paying any attention to anything that she said on that stage were fellow debaters, and they all knew what it was like. It wasn't as if she was going to go out into the real world and say that she didn't think that people had the right to use whatever bathroom they wanted. That was crazy, and everyone knew it. 

But she'd argued for it, and she'd won. Which meant that if someone else could argue as well as she did, they could get people to believe them. But it wouldn't be her, and it wasn't as if she couldn't have argued the other side and won with that, too. She might even have won by a larger margin, because she would have been able to argue it with more conviction. But that hadn't been the card she'd been handed. 

She rolled over, trying to find a comfortable position, but every time she started to drift off, that girl – Lexa – that damned infuriating _beautiful_ girl...

... beautiful? Where had _that_ come from? 

Sure, there was no question that she was pretty, but that didn't have anything to do with anything. What she looked like didn't matter; it was what she said, what she _did_ that mattered. And what she'd done was exactly what she'd set out to do. She'd gotten into Clarke's head, and now she couldn't sleep and she would have to drink extra coffee in the morning to keep herself alert, and hopefully the caffeine wouldn't make her jittery, and...

"Fuck you, Lexa," she growled to no one, jerking her sleeping bag up around her ears. "I'll make you pay for this."

But the next day she didn't see her at all. Not once. She was absolutely sure of it, because she spent the entire day looking, and her team (especially Bellamy) was getting increasingly frustrated with her lack of focus. She managed to come out ahead, but barely, in her debates, and at the end of the day when they checked to see where they stood, they were in second place, several points behind Ton DC. Of course.

"You need to get yourself together," Bellamy said. "We could be ahead if you had actually _tried_."

Clarke bit back a retort, because although Bellamy had won today, it hadn't been by much, and if they were behind it was as much his fault as hers. But it wasn't about laying blame... even if that's what he was doing. She had to be the bigger person. "I'm sorry," she said. "Tomorrow will be better."

"It better be," he said, running a hand through his hair, which just flopped straight back into his eyes. "It's our last chance."

"I know," she said. "Okay? I know. You don't need to worry about me. I've got it."

"I wish I could believe you." He walked away, and Clarke was equal parts irritated and relieved. She hated the fact that he was able to make her feel this way, that no matter how well or badly he'd done, he was able to make her feel like whatever she'd done wasn't good enough. 

She went back to the dorm to prepare for the last day, her head spinning from lack of sleep and too much caffeine and too many thoughts. She had to bring her A game tomorrow. Her team was counting on her. 

When she opened the door to the little common room, she was relieved to see that there was no one there... until she took a step further in and saw that Lexa was there. On the couch. Asleep.

She sat down quietly in a chair, not wanting to disturb her. (Why shouldn't she, though, after what she'd done? Payback was a bitch, right?) She glanced at her note cards... and then pulled out a blank sheet of paper and began to sketch instead. She was nearly done when Lexa woke with a start, jerking upright and looking around with wild eyes. 

"Hey," Clarke said, putting aside the drawing and going to her side before she could think about it. "Hey, it's okay. You're okay." She put her hand on Lexa's knee, wanting to give her some kind of comfort, reassurance. 

Lexa looked down at it, then up at her, and Clarke could swear for a second that she saw the faintest sheen of tears in her eyes before she blinked and looked away, burying her face in her hands. "I'm fine," she said. "It's fine."

"Bad dream?" Clarke asked.

Lexa's shoulders lifted, then fell. "I never wanted to do this," she said after a moment, almost too soft for Clarke to hear. "I never asked for this."

Clarke blinked. "Then why...?"

Lexa just shook her head. If there was an explanation, Clarke wasn't going to get it. Not now, not today, and after tomorrow they would never see each other again, so she assumed she would probably never know. Which was fine. Why should she even care?

"Can I get you anything?" she asked. "Water? Coffee?"

Lexa shook her head again. "I'm all right. Thank you."

"Okay," Clarke said, but she didn't move. She was acutely aware of the fact that her hand was still on Lexa's knee, of the heat of her body that bled through the thin material of her pants, which clung to her like a second skin.

"It just bothers me," Lexa said after a long moment. "Why would they make that a topic of debate? There should be rules." She finally looked up, and this time, yes, there were tears, and they spilled over and fell and Clarke's hand moved from Lexa's knee to her cheek, brushing them away seemingly of its own volition, because she would swear that she hadn't made a conscious decision to do so.

"It is kind of shitty," Clarke said. "I wasn't happy when I got it. Just... for the record. I was happy that I won, but... I guess I just divorced myself from the actual ideology behind what I was saying."

"I guess that's easy when it has nothing to do with you," Lexa said. "It's easy to pretend it's just a game, that it doesn't matter, when it's not personal."

Clarke frowned. "You're assuming it's not personal."

Lexa looked at her, staring into her eyes like she could read the contents of the inside of her skull if she just tried hard enough. "Isn't it?" she asked. 

Clarke felt as if a hundred butterflies had just burst out of their cocoons in her stomach and were now making a bid for freedom. A cold sweat prickled over her back and chest. "I don't know," she said. "Maybe."

God, she was _so close_. How had they ended up so close together, with her knee bumping against Lexa's, her hand still resting against the side of her neck, ready in case there were any more tears, so close that Clarke could smell her shampoo, something light and citrusy, and see all of the flecks and swirls in the green of her eyes? 

"I've watched you," Lexa said, her voice barely a whisper. "In videos of debates. To prepare. I've watched you."

"And?" Clarke asked, not sure where this was going. Not sure she wanted to find out. 

"I don't want to go up against you," Lexa said. "I don't want to be your opponent."

"Why not?"

"Because I might lose," Lexa said. "I don't like losing."

"Neither do I," Clarke said. 

"But I wasn't just doing it to rattle you," Lexa continued. 

_Just._ Which meant that at least some of what Lexa had done, had said, had been strategic. At least some of it _had_ been an attempt to throw her off her game. 

"I really wanted – needed – to know."

"What?" Clarke asked, then decided that wasn't really the question that she wanted to, should be asking. "Why?"

"Because I've watched you," Lexa said. 

"That's not—" Clarke started, but she didn't get to finish, because Lexa's lips met hers then in a kiss impossibly gentle, unbearably tender, and all thought ceased as the butterflies exploded free and disappeared and she leaned in and kissed her back.

The kiss lasted so long Clarke started to forget where she left off and Lexa began, and it might have gone on longer, might have turned into more, if they hadn't heard footsteps outside the door. They broke apart, smoothing hair and tugging disarrayed shirts back into place, and for a second they just stared at each other, barely breathing, waiting for the door to open, waiting to get caught.

The footsteps receded, the door untouched, and after a few seconds, they both started to laugh, just a twitching of their mouths at first which led to uncertain giggles, and then full-fledged gasping laughter that took some time to get back under control. Clarke looked at Lexa, and was stunned by how much more beautiful she was when she smiled. "Oops," she said.

Lexa's smile faltered. "Was it?"

Clarke shook her head. "Nearly getting walked in on, yes. The rest of it...? No. Although maybe I should have waited until tomorrow, when you weren't The Enemy anymore." She smiled, trying to take any sting out of the words.

"Maybe tomorrow would have been too late," Lexa said. 

"Maybe it would have," Clarke agreed. 

"Should we try to do some work?" Lexa asked. 

"Probably," Clarke said. She dragged her bag over and settled in, the silence this time companionable, the warmth of Lexa at her side comforting somehow instead of distracting. After a few hours she stretched. "I should actually try to sleep tonight," she said. 

"Me too," Lexa said. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow."

"I guess so," Clarke agreed. She wondered for a second if Lexa would kiss her again, or if she should kiss Lexa, but Lexa had already turned her attention back to her work, and she wondered if the moment had passed, and wondered if she would spend the entire night obsessing over it, replaying it down to the tiniest detail...

... and then realized that maybe if she did, she could use that to her advantage. Endorphins helped you sleep, after all. With a silent apology to Harper (who was thankfully already asleep) she let herself relive the moment that Lexa's lips had touched hers, and all of the moments after until they'd been forced apart... and let her imagination wander over what might have been if no one had decided to wander by... and let herself wonder if maybe Lexa was thinking about the same things in her own room tonight...

She pressed her face into her pillow to muffle her moan as pleasure peaked and ebbed, and her sleep was deep and her dreams sweet.

The next morning, they found out who their final opponents would be. Unsurprisingly, Arkadia and Ton DC would be fighting each other for the top spot. They'd been given a list of topics that and they'd been expected to be prepared to argue either side of any of the them. Clarke was the last of her group called... and of course the one called to oppose her was Lexa. She suppressed a smile, and thought she saw Lexa doing the same.

Their topic was the death penalty, and Clarke was given the position of being anti, and Lexa pro. Clarke had no idea what Lexa's actual beliefs on the topic might be, but she argued her points well, and she honestly wasn't sure where things stood when they finished. They were all dismissed without a winner being declared, and went to have lunch. 

"I can't believe it's over," Bellamy said. "We just have to wait for the final scores." 

"Yeah," Clarke said, distracted as the Ton DC team walked in, Lexa at the center with the others around her like some kind of honor guard. She watched as they went to get their food, and then as they all sat down. "I'll... I'll be right back, okay?" She stood up and went over to the table where Lexa was sitting, acutely aware of the eyes of every member of her team on her back as she crossed the invisible line between Us and Them.

"Do you mind if I sit here?" she asked.

"Be my guest," Lexa said, her tone much more welcoming than it had been the first time they'd met, nudging the chair across from her out with her foot. 

Clarke sat. "I thought you didn't want to be my opponent," she said.

"I didn't get a choice," Lexa replied. 

"Who do you think won?" Clarke asked.

"Does it matter? It's only a game."

"It matters to them." She nodded over toward her team, who were all looking at her like she'd stabbed them in the back. Especially Bellamy. 

"Mm," Lexa said, a sound that might have meant anything. "And to you?"

"I don't like losing," Clarke said. 

"Neither do I," Lexa said. "But at least if I did, it was to a worthy adversary."

"About last night," Clarke said, dropping her voice. "That... wasn't a game, was it? That wasn't just..."

"That wasn't a game," Lexa said. "Not even a little." She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, tapping on the screen before sliding it across the table to Clarke.

Clarke picked it up and saw that it was open to the Contacts screen, showing the name Clarke of Arkadia. She couldn't help smiling as she added her last name, and then her phone number and email address before handing it back. 

Lexa typed something, and a second later a message popped up on her phone. "Now you have my number, too," she said. 

"Thank you," Clarke said. "I should probably go back."

"Probably," Lexa agreed. "If looks could kill, we would both be dead."

Clarke smiled again, and stood up to go back to her team. 

"If we lose because you're sleeping with the enemy..." Bellamy growled. 

"What?" Clarke asked. "If we lose what?" The stakes were non-existent, as far as she was concerned. Whatever the outcome, whoever was selected to go to Nationals... she was happy. Which she knew was a complete about-face from her feelings going in, but... things changed.

Bellamy just glared at her and attacked his food, and she calmly sipped her water. Conversation resumed around them, but she couldn't help feeling like everyone on her team was now looking at her with suspicion, and if they did lose, she would be blamed. It hurt, even though she told herself it shouldn't, that she shouldn't let her bother her. Because high school rivalries ended when you left high school. In a few months, they would all just be people.

Finally, they were all called into the auditorium, and they found seats. There were the requisite speeches about good sportsmanship and how everyone had done a great job and blah blah blah... and then they announced the winner...s. 

"In an unprecedented tie, the winners of the State Debate Championships this year are Arkadia High School and Ton DC High School."

When they got the breakdown of the scores, they found that Clarke had won her debate with Lexa by just enough points to even the margin that Ton DC had held over them. Her win had put the teams on equal ground. 

"What happens now?" Bellamy asked. 

Their advisor, Mr. Kane, smiled. "You'll all go to Nationals as a combined team," he said. "Which means you're going to have to put aside your differences and figure out how to work together."

"Oh, Clarke's already got a head start on that," Bellamy grumbled. "Maybe if you hadn't been going easy on your girlfriend—"

"Enough," Mr. Kane said. "Maybe this isn't the result that you hoped for, but the fact is that you did win. You just weren't the only winners. Sometimes that's how things go. It's no one's fault, and it doesn't help anyone to point fingers or lay blame. Now everyone go and pack up and get ready to head home. We'll meet at the bus in an hour."

Clarke hurried back to the dorm, bypassing her room and heading straight to the common room. A wave of cold panic slid through her when she found it empty... but a second later Lexa walked in, looking more uncertain than Clarke had ever seen her. 

"So I guess this is goodbye," she said.

"For now," Clarke replied. "But Nationals are in three weeks. We'll see each other then."

"That's true." Lexa took a step closer, closing the distance between them, and Clarke held out her arms, wrapping her in a hug, and they rocked almost as if they were slow dancing. Clarke nuzzled her cheek, and when Lexa looked at her, she kissed her, soft and then not so soft, and it was tempting, so tempting, to take her over to the couch and use as much of the hour they had to kiss her and touch her, to learn her inside and out... 

But no. She deserved better than that. They both did. "You know," Clarke said softly, "if we're all considered one team, when they go to do room assignments..." 

Lexa's breath caught and her eyes went wide, and then she kissed Clarke again in a way that told her that she was having the exact same thoughts about the couch. But she broke away before things could get out of control. "It's going to be a long three weeks."

**Author's Note:**

> My apologies to anyone who actually did debate; I'm sure I got it all wrong.


End file.
